


Five Minutes (The Unbound Remix)

by pocky_slash



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Treme X-Men
Genre: M/M, Remix, Reunions, Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 18:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James is used to the loss of his lover. That doesn't make it any easier to deal with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Minutes (The Unbound Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heyjupiter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyjupiter/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Be My Thrill](https://archiveofourown.org/works/762380) by [heyjupiter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyjupiter/pseuds/heyjupiter). 



> Specifically remixing chapter 3, [Unbind Me](http://archiveofourown.org/works/762380/chapters/1426911). For those not familiar with _X-Treme X-Men_ , there's a pretty good primer [here](http://fourteenacross.tumblr.com/post/45205583909/internet-today-is-the-day-i-am-going-to-get-you), but the elevator pitch is that it's about a group of X-Men from multiple dimensions who have united to save the multiverse by hopping from alternate world to alternate world to kill evil versions of Charles Xavier. James Howlett, Former Governor General of Canada and lover of the demigod Hercules, is one of them.

James sees him in dreams, fleetingly, a presence lingering just out of his reach. Never happy dreams, never dreams of being reunited. Maybe his subconscious knows that waking would be that much more difficult if he had to lose Hercules all over again.

Waking is still difficult. A glimmer at the edge of his peripheral vision is still more than he'll ever get again.

"We were damn fools," he says to the empty air, and pushes himself up to start breakfast.

*

James likes that Emmeline doesn't ask questions. She doesn't beg him for his story or ask why he looks so distant sometimes. He knows she understands. He knows she's familiar with loss. They all are, now, but theirs is a specific breed of loss, and they're united in that, even if they never acknowledge it.

Sometimes, Emmeline finds him sitting alone and offers him a drink. It's enough.

*

It's not uncommon to find the boy crying at night. Not always. He's remarkably good humored for someone so young who's seen so much. He's quite stable. But it's hard on all of them, sometimes, and young Kurt isn't yet skilled in hiding his tears.

"I lost someone too," he says, petting the boy's hair one night while the others sleep.

Kurt sniffles. "Your mom and dad?" he asks.

"My lover," James says. "There were various rules against our relationship. We were punished. I escaped--he didn't."

"Rules against your relationship?" Kurt asks. "Wow. We read in school that gay people couldn't get married once, but it was a really long time ago. That's really stupid."

"That wasn't the only rule we broke," James says because it's easier than reliving the whole ordeal. "Why don't you tell me a little about your parents?"

"Okay," Kurt says.

The boy falls asleep before long. He doesn't mention it again in the morning, but he does find James and give him a hug before running off to help Xavier.

*

(James wonders, sometimes, about Xavier. Xavier's lost everyone, he knows, but sometimes when he talks about them--briefly, fleetingly, just for a moment before changing the subject--something in his eyes changes. He knows the names of Xavier's first team, his original team, the team on his world--Scott, Jean, Warren, Erik. He wonders which one of them puts that sadness in Xavier's eyes. He'll never ask. He knows that some things are best dealt with alone.)

*

James doesn't mean to tell Alison anything, but she asks and he answers and she asks for more and he keeps talking. Just a piece every time, a morsel of years of shared history. Not the important things, either--he tells her the bare bones of the story, but not what Hercules looked like, not the way he laughed, not the way he so carefully pulled the stems off of strawberries with his thick fingers before he ate them or the way he downed whiskey without a flinch but made a face at the first swig of coffee in the morning.

Even without the details, she's sympathetic, kind. She brings a whole new element to the team, different from Xavier's tunnel-vision or Emmeline's cold pragmatism. He finds he likes it. He hasn't had a real friend in ages, not since he left his world, not really. She's easy to talk to and an excellent leader. 

Most of all, though, he's glad he's told her once they arrive at the unicorn monster world. Because the moment he sees Hercules, his mind short-circuits with something like hope.

*

"Can you wait like five minutes until Sage finishes her sweep of this new world?" Alison says as they hover over a fresh landscape, quiet and without immediate signs of an aggressor.

Not that James is looking for an aggressor. He's staring at Hercules. He's afraid to look away.

"Five minutes?" James asks. 

He's waited this long, he thinks as he touches Hercules' arm again, just because he can. Five minutes more is nothing.


End file.
